Canada will donate up to 1,000 experimental Ebola vaccine doses to WHO

A file photo taken on June 28, 2014 shows a member of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) putting on protective gear at the isolation ward of the Donka Hospital in Conakry, where people infected with the Ebola virus are being treated. (AFP Photo / Cellou Binani)

​Canada has offered to donate its experimental Ebola virus vaccine to West African States after the WHO said it would be ethical to use untested vaccines to try and contain the outbreak that has already claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people.

According to the Public
Health Agency of Canada (PHA) the country sees the vaccine as a
global resource and is in talks with the US and the World Health
Organization to coordinate the best application of a limited
number of doses in its possession.

The deputy head of PHA Dr. Gregory Taylor estimates that Canada
has about 1,500 doses of the vaccine, which has not yet been
tested on people, saying that 1,000 doses of vaccine could be
sent abroad for use, Canadian Press reports.

Taylor also warned that since the drug is yet to be tested on
humans, it’s not clear what dosage is needed to protect a person,
so those numbers could change.

Earlier on Tuesday, the WHO announced that experimental drugs can
be used to treat patients but the scarcity of supplies raises
questions who gets saved first.

“There was unanimous agreement among the experts that in the
special circumstances of this Ebola outbreak it is ethical to
offer unregistered interventions as potential treatments or
prevention,” the WHO's assistant director general
Marie-Paule Kieny said after an ethics panel published its
guidance.

The WHO adjourned a meeting after Zmapp an experimental drug
previously tested on humans by US biotech company Mapp
Biopharmaceutical, was offered as a treatment to two US aid
workers infected in Liberia. The WHO said only around 10 to 12
doses of the drug have been made.

Overall the WHO believes that the first tests of the experimental
drugs in humans would be done over the next two to four months.

Meanwhile the US department of State has issued “Response to the Ebola Virus” a fact sheet outlining
Washington’s efforts to contain the outbreak of the Ebola virus.

The US efforts to battle the deadly virus is based on
conglomerate response of a number of US federal agencies,
including the Department of Defense and Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), to offer “every possible form
of assistance to the affected countries, their citizens and
international organizations responding to the outbreak, ”
State department said.

US authorities have approved a request from Liberia's government
to send sample doses of the experimental ZMapp drug to treat
those infected with Ebola, after on Friday, the FDA lifted its
hold on one of those drugs being tested in the United States.
Also on Friday, US health authorities announced that they are
sending extra personnel and resources to Nigeria.

On the home-front the
statement reads that US “has a range of steps in place to
prevent the introduction, transmission and spread of suspected
communicable diseases across the US border.”

US authorities concentrate their efforts on “appropriate
procedures are in place for screening both in the region and here
in the United States", as “there is no significant risk
to the United States from Ebola.”

Health officials said Sunday that missionaries retuning to the
United States after working with patients infected with Ebola
will be put in quarantine and monitored, after USA aid worker
Nancy Writebol is still in hospital in after contracting Ebola
while in West Africa.

There is no treatment or vaccine for Ebola, which has a mortality
rate of up to 90 percent. Currently it can be contained if those
exposed are swiftly isolated. According to CDC guidelines,
medical workers treating Ebola patients should wear protective
gowns, goggles, face masks and gloves.

Companies working against the clock to provide treatments include
Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, Biocryst Pharmaceuticals and Siga
Technologies.

As soon as next month GlaxoSmithKline and American scientists at
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases want to
conduct a clinical trial after promising test results in
primates.

An experimental vaccine from Johnson & Johnson is expected to
enter Phase I clinical trials as early as late 2015, while
Profectus Biosciences is also working on preclinical vaccine.

A total of 1,848 suspected cases with 1,013 deaths have been
reported by the World Health Organization in West Africa, of
which 1,176 cases and 660 deaths have been confirmed to be Ebola.